Archive for November, 2007
happy thanksgiving
One thing I’ve learned this week: suprisingly, there aren’t a whole lotta great thank-you songs out there. I can only take so much Dido and an entire song, well… not so much. But I’m thankful for the ones I found :). Here’s a song I’ve been saving for this day, hope it makes you smile. Enjoy, have a beautiful Turkey Day and thank you for visiting.
Bummer, I had the original performance from SNL but Universal pulled it. Soooo here’s another, still entertaining (and live) version of Adam Sandler’s homage to Thanksgiving and a link to someplace else so you can work that appetite while/by browsing.
be thankful for what you’ve got
More soulful funk, amongst other things to be thankful for…
by William DeVaughn (one hit wonder? I suppose, but I imagine he was thankful for it). Click here cause the video isn’t really a video, and have a happy, happy holiday!
thank you
In keeping with the week’s theme, another thank you - this time falettinme be mice elf agin. Sly and the Family Stone, circa 1970. Click here to go somewhere else while funkin’ out.
Now a medley of Slyness… the sound isn’t great and neither is the video, but the live performance and the crowd… priceless. Hang in there for some Hot Fun in the Summertime. Gotta give it to ‘em, they were seriously funkadelic.
That was then, and this is now… flash forward to Sly and Family, older and sober and dare I say with even more soul (I guess 37 years’ll do that to ya’), at the North Sea Jazz Fest in July of 2007. Sista traded her platinum wig in for some white satin pants. Gotta love her.
thank u
I thought we’d start this week with an obvious theme… I have lots more coming in observance of the best holiday of the year (my favorite, anyway). Enjoy, and thank you for checking in. There really will be more shirts and fun stuff coming, but for now I offer my thanks and warm wishes for a wonderful week.
Click here to browse while the unmistakable Alanis Morisette plays.
pacific garbage patch
Let’s start with some music… wish I didn’t have to post a video for every song but until I can figure something else out it’s all I can do. Today I make a request: buy something! No, that’s not really my request (although please don’t let me stop you), my request is that you start the song and scroll south and read this post and heed it well, and try to buy less plastic, recycle more, and do what you can. I’ll be the first to admit that I find it quite challenging, bottled water is an ingrained habit, but I’m gonna try to break it.
Thanks for visiting…
Released in 1971, the quintessential melodious call to environmental awareness, Marvin Gaye’s Mercy, Mercy Me (the Ecology).
So a week or so ago, on a walk on Sunset Cliffs in San Diego, I came across some trash; the usual beer bottles, cigarette butts, food wrappers and whatnot… unfortunately not an uncommon occurence. On this day, right at the edge of the cliffs, there was a corrugated cardboard box. Typically I don’t pick up porous paper products (I try to limit myself to non-biodegradable trash collecting), but this time there was a plastic bait bag laying next to the box, a feather breeze would’ve blown it into the sea. I went to pick up the bag (and the box, since I was there), and lo and behold, the box, right there on the edge of the cliffs, was FILLED with plastic bait bags. Close by was a bag of hard plastic ties, opened and strewn about. I spewed some expletives about the @#$%* idiots who abuse the same ocean they rely on for sustenance, and continued on my way.
Interestingly, that very same morning after my walk I went for coffee at a little shop at the beach and noticed some kind of ruckus going on at the shoreline. Turns out an “extreme athlete” named Tom Jones (not the same Tom Jones women used to toss their panties to) was paddling through and making a landfall on his way to Imperial Beach on his California Paddle. His cause:
“Tom is drawing world-wide attention to the problem of plastic pollution in our oceans. A recent study has found that there is six times more plastic in the ocean than plankton off the coast of California. A United Nations Environmental Report estimated that there is more than 5.76 million tons of plastic in our oceans. To put that in perspective, that’s enough to put 2/3 of California in a plastic bag. At the current plastic usage acceleration rate of 5% per year, according to the Resin Review published by the American Plastic Council, we could cover the entire state of California in plastic by 2014 and every landmass on Earth by the year 2042.”
As obsessive as I am on the topic I had to start researching and then, only a few nights later, there was a segment on Countdown about the ‘Pacific Garbage Patch’, “an area twice the size of Texas that’s become a toilet bowl of plastics“… I’d never heard of it but turns out oceanographers have been researching and warning us about it for years. The Countdown segment isn’t available but here’s some mainstream (sorry) video, the most recent and concise information I could find to share:
To view the motion of the vortex in the ocean click here. Since they sell it, I’m not gonna post a 9 minute video entitled “Synthetic Sea”, by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. You can find it online but I’m not going to post it. There is a dizzying amount of information out there, you’ll find more links below.
There is a new continent in the Pacific Ocean. Actually it has been forming for years. It was documented in the 1950’s. It is larger now, by some reports twice the size of Texas. And growing. The most amazing thing of all is the substance of the island.
Plastic. Trash. Junk. The North Pacific Gyre is an area of swirling currents moving in a clockwise pattern that the major ocean currents lead into. Think of it as an aquatic roundabout in heavy traffic- very difficult to get off of. Over time the plastics and trash that has been intentionally and accidentally dumped into our oceans has found its way to the North Pacific Gyre and remains there. Accumulating at an alarming rate it is literally forming a continent made of trash. click here to continue…
Here are a few things you can do:
1. Use canvas bags to shop.
2. Take your own mug to Starbucks.
3. Recycle plastic as much as you can.
4. Use glass and other recyclable materials when possible.
5. Limit the amout of things you buy that are encased in plastic.
6. Pick something up, else it will likely end up in the sea (that’s from me)
7. Boycott balloons. Balloons released even inland will also likely end up blowing into the sea (yep, that one too).
More information:
Plastic Ocean by Susan Casey from Best Life
Trash Vortex from Greenpeace International
Drowning in an Ocean of Plastic by Stephen Leahy in Wired Magazine
Trashed by Charles Moore
Navigating the Pacific’s ‘Garbage Patch’ from NPR
Surfrider tips for reducing plastic debris
Cryptic Moth: Two guys, two cameras, and a world full of plastic…
tonight i have to leave it
I wanted to say hello before heading out for a love (oops, that was a Freudian), I mean LIVE performance by Glen Hansard and singer/pianist Markéta Irglová, a.k.a. The Swell Season. If you’ve not seen the film “Once“, then be sure to rent the DVD when it becomes available. It’s really touching. I’d previously posted a performance - to view click here.
I’d planned to relay some important oceanic issues today, fueled (sorry) and exacerbated by the catastrophic 58,000 gallons of oil spilled in San Francisco Bay on 11/7/07, but Sunday just isn’t the day. Sunday’s the day to give and send some love and gratitude. Please return soon for some updates on the state of the oceans and the ‘Pacific Garbage Patch’ of plastics in particular. It ain’t pretty but pretty scary, and the information is critical. I will share soon and relay tips on what we can (and must) do to save our seas.
For now, the Ship Project by the Shout Out Louds - click here to browse while listening, enjoy, and whatever you do, give some love…
I detected more than a slight Cure influence so… I just had to. Here’s a little Love Song, with
Robert Smith at his most Edward Scissorhandsish.
A Forest. Have a splendid evening and a wonderful week!
all i need
Wonderful song, and although not an official video release by the band a fitting interpretation of ‘all i need’ by a creative fan. From their CD ‘In Rainbows’, edited with footage from the 1996 French film “Microcosmos”, all credits going to the film, Radiohead, and the Creator.
On another Radiohead note, if you’ve not yet already you may still download their most recent recording “In Rainbows”. In addition to their reliable uniqueness of sound, you may also enjoy their music at your price, starting at nothing. After it was said and done I ended up paying $22. I didn’t realize that at the time (a currency exchange miscalculation), but I admired so much that they made this ‘music at your own price’ offering that I didn’t mind; money toward a respectable cause.
Enjoy, and click here if for some reason you’re not compelled to watch the beautifully captured majesty of nature for these few moments.
another favorite (there are so many) - there, there…
last one for now (although I could go on all night, but…) go to sleep
time to go home
A sad and ironic announcement was made yesterday, exactly one year from the election of a new administration. 52 Tuesdays away from election day, 2007 was pronounced the deadliest year for US troops in Iraq after six new deaths were reported by the military. What are we doing and how/when can/will we stop - and isn’t it time to go home yet?
Thank you and God bless to Michael Franti & Spearhead, a man knows what he believes in and remains relentless in relaying his message. Thank you and God bless, save and speed to our troops. Support them by clicking here, and do speak your peace, celebrate your freedom, and dance.
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
Hello Bonjour
52 tuesdays
Click the link for a brief artistic interpretation of the 22nd amendment of these here United States of America… 52 Tuesdays away, y’all!
The Twenty-second Amendment of the United States Constitution sets a term limit for the President of the United States, providing that “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.” Prior to the adoption of the amendment, the Constitution set no limit on the number of presidential terms. The United States Congress passed the amendment on March 21, 1947. It was ratified by the requisite number of states on February 27, 1951.
And for your reference and reverence, here’s the amendment in its entirety:
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress.
Say Amen brothers and sisters!
miserere
I wanted to post something observing the time change, marking the onset of longer and colder nights with the onset of darkness an hour earlier each day. As I went through my own library I found a favorite by Zucchero with Miles Davis, “Dune Mosse” (definitely a dark and smokey one), but as I continued my search I came across this lovely performance of “Miserere”, Zucchero’s duet with one who lives in darkness, Andrea Bocelli… makes a mere extra hour of it much easier to take.
Stay happy and warm, and click here to look while listening (blessed are we with the ability to do both).
Dune Mosse
And another rendition of Miserere, this time featuring Pavarotti and Bono and (full circle)
Zucchero on piano.
-
Tee of the Month
